


Blind Loyalty and Consequences Thereof

by Fox_In_A_Box



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, But Not Too Seriously, Canon-Typical Violence, Co-workers to Friends, Crack Treated Seriously, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Humor, updates when it updates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2020-01-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 15:53:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21970723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fox_In_A_Box/pseuds/Fox_In_A_Box
Summary: Lieutenant Mitaka can't bear to watch his General die such an unworthy death on the bridge of the Steafast, so he devises a plan to help him escape from the First Order. The plan involves trying his hand at first aid, stealing a Tie Fighter, and finding a nice secluded planet to hide on for a while.And that's the easy part.
Relationships: Armitage Hux & Dopheld Mitaka
Comments: 13
Kudos: 32





	1. CHAPTER ONE - In which Lieutenant Mitaka figures out where his loyalty lies and General Hux just wishes he was dead

**Author's Note:**

> This is my way to cope with what happened to Hux in TROS. Nuff said. So obviously, this fic will contain spoilers if you haven't seen the movie yet and if you, like me, care too much about the fate of an evil space ginger.

They say there are two kinds of people in the galaxy: natural-born leaders, whose commanding presence and sharp wits place them one step above their peers, and those who are born with an unrestrainable urge to follow. Follow orders, follow the rules, follow their leaders to the ends of the the universe and back, if necessary.

Lieutenant Mitaka belonged to the second category.

He had come to accept it, too. With the exception of the relentless teasing he had received from his classmates back in his training days, his obliging nature had always been greatly appreciated by supervisors and comrades alike. He was competent, quick to react when the circumstances called for it, and he was loyal, which was always a good thing to be if you wanted to get ahead in the First Order.

Once he had completed his training, it hadn't taken him long to find a place under direct command of General Armitage Hux. As far as Mitaka was concerned, there was no better place to be.

He was at his happiest when he could ensure the physical and psychological wellbeing of his General, and the highlight of the endless weeks he spent aboard a Star Destroyer, running back and forth from bridge to bridge to relay orders and information, were the rare times Hux would approach him to give him a light pat on the back and commend him for a job well done.

Now, there's only so much time you can spend around someone, catering to their every need, striving to satisfy their every demand, jumping at every chance to be useful, before you start developing a genuine affection towards them.

After almost ten years working under him, the General had become his only anchor, keeping him grounded in a universe dominated by wars and occult forces he struggled to even comprehend. In a sense, he was the closest thing Mitaka had ever had to a family. Which wasn't saying much, since his _real_ family had entrusted him to his trainers when he was twelve, promising to visit for the holidays only to never show up again. But that was beside the point.

Mitaka wasn't sure whether the sentiment was mutual or not, but as long as he was allowed to follow the General wherever his duties took him, it didn't really matter. He was perfectly happy where he was - at his General's side, ready to put his skills to good use. It was why he relished in finding new ways to earn his approval, his gratitude a thousand times more rewarding than any promotion.

And it was also why, when he saw the General lying on his back on the shiny black floor of the main bridge with a hole in his chest, the entire galaxy came crumbling down on him.

It all happened so fast.

Mitaka felt as if he was watching a horrible holofilm in fast forwards; Hux talking to that other general whose name he couldn’t recall, a weapon being suddenly aimed at him, Hux not being able to react before the trigger was pulled, two troopers being ordered to 'dispose of him', the other general's self-satisfied smirk.

His mind rebelled the idea of leaving him for dead, doing nothing to spare him from a painful and untimely demise unworthy of a man of his calibre. In a moment of perfect clarity, he followed the guards tasked with escorting Hux to the cell where he would ideally be spending the last few minutes of his life. As soon as the troopers made the fatal mistake to turn their back to him, he drew his blaster and neutralised them.

Thanks to the rush of adrenaline that kicked in afterwards, being left alone with a mortally wounded General didn't seem as terrible as it might have sounded. Mitaka had always been a quick thinker, even before joining the Order, and he was a hopeless optimist on top of that. In the span of a few seconds, the long list of his priorities had already been narrowed down to three.

One - prevent the General from going into shock and dying.

Two - leave the _Steadfast_ undetected.

Three - find a secluded planet to repair to until the dust settles.

There was still the little issue of these actions labelling him as a traitor and setting him up for possibly being hunted down for the rest of his days, but that would be a problem for Future Mitaka. Present Mitaka only needed to make sure that the General would be strong enough to walk with him to the hangar and board a vessel that could take them both as far from the Destroyer as possible in the shortest possible time.

"It's alright, sir. I've got you," he tried to sound more confident than he actually was, which was not confident at all.

Hux took in a sharp breath, followed by a chocked gasp that made his stomach turn. His eyes were half-closed, unfocused, staring blindly at some point just above his shoulder. One of his hands was clutching Mitaka's arm, undecided if it wanted to push him away or to draw him closer.

Mitaka carefully extricated himself from his hold. "I'll be right back."

The General didn't respond.

Thankfully, no one seemed to be paying much attention to them.

All the other officers present on ship appeared to be too caught up in dealing dealing with the maihem caused by the escaped Resistance fighters to care for the lonely lieutenant breaking into the med bay and rushing back to where the General was laying with an armful of medical supplies.

"I'll get us out of here and you'll be better in no time," he said, more to convince himself than to reassure the semi-conscious man as he tried to figure out how the emergency bacta liquid was meant to be applied. "In no time at all, sir. I promise."

****

Hux was in pain.

The last thing he remembered was that _kriffing bastard_ Pryde snatching the weapon from a nearby trooper and pointing it at him. Too quick for him to have any chance at reaching for his own blaster. The sheer force of the blow had knocked the air out of his lungs and when his back had collided with the floor of the bridge, his world had been swallowed by darkness.

A part of him was pretty sure he had died. Point-blank shot to the chest, minimal chances of survival. No need to dig through the memories from years of training and military experience to know that. And yet, he was coming to. Slowly, as if stirring from a particularly unpleasant dream only to find himself waking up in an even less pleasant reality.

As soon as he was able to register the real intensity of the pain clawing at his chest, he decided that he would have very much rather remained unconscious. He could hardly breathe. Each time he tried to get more air, he was punished with a sharp twinge of agony that gave him the impression that his ribs had been cracked and his still beating heart had been ripped out.

To add insult to injury, his vision was clouded by black spots making it almost impossible to get a grasp of his surroundings. He was vaguely aware of a series of curt orders being shouted in the distance and a figure dressed in a black officer uniform walking urgently in and out of his field of vision. He heard him mumble something under his breath as he staggered and almost tripped on his own feet, too low for him to hear over the deafening rumble of blood rushing in his ears.

Hux winced at the sudden contact of something cold against his bare skin. He didn't even bother to wonder when his unlikely rescuer had taken the time to unbutton the shirt of his uniform and retrieve...whatever it was that he was putting on the charred flesh surrounding his wound.

A familiar voice cut through the haze. Familiar, yet he would have been hard pressed to tell who it belonged to. "You should keep this pressed tight to your chest. Do you think you can do that, sir?"

Could he? Hux wasn't sure.

The effort of raising his right hand and placing it on top of what was revealed to be some sort of first-aid device cut off his breath once more, threatening to have him blacking out again. After that, the pain started to subside. It became more bearable, as in not as excruciating as before, but intense enough to make him wish he had died the second the blaster shot had pierced his body.

He considered asking the officer to shoot him, right in the head this time, to grant him at least the privilege of a quick demise. The thought was soon dismissed as he realised that, in his current state, it would have been altogether too complicated to form a coherent sentence accurately expressing his request. Not to mention the humiliation of having to resort to _begging_ a subordinate to put him out of his misery.

No - no amount of suffering would persuade him to step so low. He would stare at death in the eyes, he decided, and hope with all the strength he had left that he'd get to torment Ren for the rest of his miserable existence once he passed to the other side.

During the time it took Hux to come to such a brave yet somewhat petty resolution, the subordinate in question disappeared from his field of vision once more. Hux didn't need to wonder where he had gone, because soon enough he felt himself being pulled upwards, a clumsy attempt at getting him to his feet. The instantaneous response from his treacherous body was to make him regret having ever opened his eyes.

"Le--" he tried, but the word was cut off by a violent coughing fit. The second attempt went slightly better. "Leave me."

"Oh no, no, no," the officer said. Hux couldn't see his face but the tone of his voice was enough to let him know that the man was mere inches away from a full-blown panic attack. "I won't let you die, sir. You're the only one I have left after Starkiller."

Hux's immediate instinct was to scoff at such a preposterous display of sentimentalism. He needed to have a serious talk with the people in charge of the conditioning of his soldiers.

Except that he couldn’t. Not anymore, because Snoke was dead and _Kylo Ren_ of all people had taken his place as Supreme Leader, and pointing his disastrous incompetence would be of no use when his word was no more relevant or authoritative than the one of the ten or so other Generals too busy sucking up to Ren to exert any type of critical thinking.

And then there was the fact that he was dying. Not in battle, after a glorious last stand against his enemies, but because of a stupid, ill-timed decision he had made in a moment of blind resentment.

The officer took advantage of his momentary plunge into despair to pass an arm around his waist and help him up, successfully this time around, if at the price of a spasm that ran through his right leg when he twisted his injured knee the wrong way and stumbled, almost collapsing back down on the ground.

Walking along the sleek corridors of the destroyer while at the same time keeping the medical device providing some sort of pain relief pressed against his chest required more coordination that he could muster, at the moment. Or it would have, if the officer hadn't been armed with a generous amount of determination and utter disregard for the little pained sounds that tore from his throat at every movement. After a few tries, he finally managed to get him to move the first, tentative steps forwards.

"Easy now, sir," he encouraged him. "One step at a time."

They walked - well, the officer walked, Hux limped - through a series of doors, zigzagging between the hordes of troopers rushing in from the opposite direction. Not a single one of them spared them a second glance. Admittedly, it was hard to tell with the regulation white helmets covering their faces, but, even if they did notice their presence, they made no move to alert their superiors. And that was what counted.

Somewhere down the line, even limping became too taxing and Hux was forced to rest nearly his entire weight on the poor officer who, to his credit, was doing his very best to support him while at the same time trying to maintain some sense of direction.

What could have been minutes, could have been hours, or even years later, they reached the hangar. Hux was taken aback by the number of pilots rushing to their respective Fighters. He blinked, trying to chase away the black spots still lingering at the corners of his vision and make some sense of what was happening around him.

"What--"

"I'm not entirely sure either, sir," the officer anticipated him, saving him from yet another effort that risked draining him of what little energy he had left. "I think it might have something to do with the escaped prisoners."

Right. The escaped prisoners. The prisoners _he_ had helped escape, getting himself shot twice for the trouble. That should teach him to bargain with the Resistance.

"Where's Ren?" He croaked, almost cringing at the sound of his own voice.

"He has yet to return from his mission on Kijimi. I think he might have encountered some troubles with the girl he was looking for. Not saying he might have been killed, just--"

In spite of the pain, Hux managed a triumphant sneer. "Good riddance."

"I haven't piloted one of these since the academy," the officer confessed, as he helped Hux climb onto the seat of a nearby TIE Fighter. "I'm afraid this will be a bumpy ride."

He started the engine, not before ensuring that the navigation system was in working order. The TIE Fighter took off without a hitch. Which wasn't that much of a reassurance, really. In fact, that was very much the easy part. Now they were left with the significantly more challenging task of leaving the ship without being caught in the crossfire, as well as finding a way to disappear from their radars before Pryde or someone acting on his behalf noticed their disappearance and sent a squadron after them.

If Hux was skeptical about the piloting skills of his companion, he was even less confident in his ability to take down potential pursuers without sending the fighter crashing against the first piece of space debris that floated in their direction.

But sometimes the universe grants unexpected mercies to the people who least deserve it. In Hux's case, it manifested as a sudden and overpowering sense of exhaustion that left him slumped against his seat, his eyes falling closed.

He passed out just as the Fighter left the hangar and shot forwards into deep space.


	2. CHAPTER TWO - In which Lieutenant Mitaka goes on a supply run and General Hux mistakes an ally for a dangerous enemy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Star Wars universe is so dumb. Glass? I don't know her. You're thinking about TRANSPARISTEEL. A knife? Perhaps you meant ~ vibroblade ~. I love it.

_It could have been worse_ , Mitaka thought as he surveyed the remains of the TIE Fighter that had aided their miraculous escape.

What once was the epitome of military engineering at the service of an unstoppable force striving to build a new order in the Galaxy, was now little more than a giant pile of metal scraps, durasteel and broken transparisteel. The soft electrical buzz coming from the severed wires hanging limp out of the ship's carcass only added to the desolate atmosphere.

Someone with a sensitive poetic spirit might have seen it as a metaphor for the fate of the First Order. Lieutenant Mitaka, who had never prided himself in being particularly imaginative, saw it as what it was – a ship he had accidentally destroyed trying to abandon the _Steadfast_ unscathed. In fact, he was quite satisfied with the emergency landing he had performed under extreme duress, after realising that the Fighter didn't have enough fuel to sustain two consecutive lightspeed jumps. He only wished General Hux could have seen him.

Speaking of the General, he really needed to go back and check on him.

Mitaka retrieved a radio transmitter from the rubbles - the one and only item he had managed to salvage from the Fighter before it had burst into flames - and marched back to where his superior was resting. The General let out a distressed noise and rolled onto his side, but other than that he didn't show any sign of being about to stir.

The bacta patch Mitaka had applied to the wound seemed to have worked just fine; skin and tissue had already started regenerating beneath the sterile bandages. How long it would take him to fully recover, though, that was up to anyone's guess. The possibility that he wouldn't be waking up at all was inconceivable. Mitaka decided therefore not to take it into consideration and started outlining a strategy to ensure their long-term survival on an unknown, mostly desertic planet with no signs of civilisation.

First of all, he needed to take care of their basic necessities. Water and possibly some food, as the low grumbling sound coming from his stomach was gracious enough to remind him. Normally, he wouldn't have hesitated to embark on a supply run, but, well, normally he didn't have to worry about protecting an unconscious General at the same time.

He cast another concerned look at General Hux, who mutter a string of incomprehensible words in his sleep. Seeing such a great man in such a vulnerable state pained him. In his current state, he couldn’t have been more different than the proud commander standing tall in the middle of the bridge with his hands clasped behind his back and his eyes fixed on the Galaxy stretching before him.

Mitaka shook his head to try and banish the bothersome thoughts. No use lingering on the past. He needed to think, more than that, he needed to _act_. As things stood, his willpower was the only thing separating him and the General from a slow, excruciating death by starvation. That was his duty now and, much like the countless tasks he had been entrusted with during the course of his career, he was determined to see it through.

He resolved to begin his search around the site of the crash. "Don't worry, sir. I'll be back soon."

After making sure his trusty blaster was still in its rightful place, hooked to his belt by his hip, he set off.

The immediate surroundings didn't offer much in terms of edible food.

Which is a euphemism that here means "there was no food in sight". Not only did he not succeed in finding a source of drinkable water, but outside of the occasional dead tree and dry bushes, the vegetation he stumbled upon was non-existent. No fruit nor berries that could fill their stomachs for a day or two. No wildlife either, though Mitaka didn't see that as a bad thing. The last thing he needed was to be forced to fend off against a pack of feral predators hungry for human flesh.

Refusing to let himself be seized by despair, Mitaka pushed himself to wander further still from the General and the wrecked Tie Fighter. As he hobbled along under the unrelenting sun, what at first glance he had assumed to be a peculiar conformation made of white and brownish rocks turned out to be a tent. Mitaka approached carefully, making as little noise as he could, but it wasn't long before he realised that the small camp had been abandoned. The fire someone someone had built with a few twigs had long died out.

The first object that attracted his attention was one of those walking sticks adventurers often used to move freely on difficult terrains. He picked it up, finding it lighter than he had thought. With a satisfied little smile, he tucked it under his arm already savouring the praise he would receive from the General for having not only tended his immediate needs but also thought about his injured knee, and carried on with his inspection.

When he peered inside the tent, Mitaka couldn't believe his luck. Among old tattered clothes scattered haphazardly here and there was a big leather bag. Inside it, several rations of military-grade food supplies, seemingly untouched. An exclamation of triumph escaped his mouth.

As he stepped out of the tent with his trophy, Mitaka found himself stumbling on something. Something he hadn't noticed before, too caught up in his mission. That something was white, it snapped easily under the soles of his boots, and was most definitely not one of the many rocks that littered the area.

For a long moment, Mitaka stared at his feet in horror. All clues pointed towards the _something_ being bones. Human bones, most likely belonging to the unlucky owners of the tent. One of the skulls even bore two indentations, resembling marks left by exceptionally sharp teeth or claws.

Mitaka ran.

He ran to put as much distance as he could between himself and his horrifying discovery. Only when he started to run out of breath was he forced to slow down.

"The General doesn't need to know," he mumbled to himself. "It wouldn't do him any good. He has enough more than enough problems to worry about."

A good Lieutenant knows when to spare his superiors useless preoccupations. When General Hux would wake from his sleep and question him about the origin of the food he had scavenged, he would have to lie. Or, at the very least, omit some key elements of the truth. Yes, that would be best.

He put on a confident smile on his face and walked over to where he had left the General who, much to his relief, seemed to have just woken up. 

****

Hux woke up with the taste of blood in his mouth and the impression of having slept on the hard and uneven surface of a pile of rocks. It wasn't exactly true. He had, in fact, been sleeping on the hard and uneven surface of an unfamiliar rocky terrain and what to a closer inspection turned out to be the shirt of his own uniform, balled up into a makeshift pillow under his head.

He instinctively brought a hand to his chest. To his utmost surprise, the tips of his fingers didn't meet the gaping hole left by the blaster shot, but rather a slightly bloody bandage, wound tight around his torso. It was then that he realised that the dull pain that had accompanied restless sleep didn't come from his most recent injury. It stemmed from somewhere above his left knee. He groaned, as the scene of that wretched traitor FN-2187 shooting him in the leg replayed in his head.

Gritting his teeth whenever a new wave of pain stabbed through his knee, he managed to pull himself up to a sitting position, both of his hands planted on the ground at either side of his waist for balance. The next task – putting on his wrinkled shirt – was more arduous. The battle against the buttons was lost before it even begun, so he settled for letting it hang open on his chest. Modesty was the last thing he needed to worry about in his current predicament, anyway.

Slowly, his surroundings started to come into focus. The scenery that unfolded in front of him, piece by dusty piece, was about as different from the sleek black halls of a star destroyer as it could get. Rock, sparse dry vegetation and scorching sun as far as the eye could see. In the middle of the wasteland stood lieutenant Mitaka, walking towards him with with an unnervingly wide smile on his face.

"What is that?" Hux asked.

"A cane, sir. There wasn't enough bacta to tend to both your chest and your knee, so I thought a cane might help--"

"I can see that, officer. I was talking about," Hux made a gesture that was meant to encompass the ancient-looking bag he had slung over his shoulder. "That."

"Oh, this? This is our dinner, sir. I stumbled upon the remains of an abandoned camp and, well, I thought you might want to eat something when you woke up. I admit I'm quite hungry myself."

And with that, he opened the backpack and emptied its contents in front of him. Half a dozen rations of military regulation food bars and a single can of water hit the ground, raising a thin cloud of dust.

Hux couldn't suppress a deep, mournful sigh. The days of lavish meals and always hot coffee delivered to quarters were over, he supposed.

The remarkable taste – or lack thereof – of the food came with a number of unsolicited memories related to his days in the academy. Days which had been remarkable if only for the harsh punishments he had received from his trainers, the cutting remarks of his classmates whenever he failed a task, and his father's disappointed expression. The same food had summoned another kind of memories altogether of Mitaka, judging by the smile that still hang over his features.

Hux realised that, deep down, he envied him. But just a bit.

After his meagre dinner, Hux decided to bring back some semblance of normality in his life. He did so by doing what he always used to do when his duties kept him away from his troops for a long time: ask for a report. Mitaka was more than eager to give him one.

Right from the very first sentences, it was pretty clear that the things the Lieutenant didn't know outnumbered the useful pieces of information he had collected while Hux was asleep. He had no idea of what kind of planet they had landed on, for one, not even what kind of system said planet belonged to. Even more alarming was the fact that most if not all of their equipment had been destroyed in the crash or melted away when the ship itself had caught fire.

What Mitaka did know, was that there was no real source of food or water for miles and that he hadn't encountered any signs of civilisation during his brief supply run. When he came to the part about the abandoned camp and how he had been able to procure their meal, though, Hux sensed that something was off.

Mitaka's initial eagerness was gone, suddenly replaced by a strange hesitation and reticence to give him more details, no matter how much he insisted. The First Order didn't bother to train his officers to be good liars and that was very much obvious from the way the Lieutenant kept averting his eyes and fiddling with a malfunctioning radio transmitter.

What he was trying to hide from him, though, Hux couldn't put a finger on. The sense of unease creeping over him was enough to remind him to keep his eyes and ears open. He hadn't survived an assassination attempt and a reckless landing on an unknown planet only to be stabbed in the back by one of his officers.

"Lieutenant...Mitaka, is it?"

The officer practically beamed. "That's me, sir."

"You did a good job."

Mitaka shook his head, forcefully, as if trying to dismiss such an unacceptable notion. "Oh no, sir. It was my duty. The least I could do, really."

Hux had met his fair share of servile people in his life, but there was something in Mitaka's ever-obliging nature that made him tense. A feeling Hux had grown very familiar with kicked in – that healthy paranoia you somehow develop and learn to live with when you occupy any position of power, the one that keeps you watching your own back and saves your life the moment an ally decides to turn on you. His eyes caught the glimmer of the setting sun reflecting on the barrel or the blaster hanging from the Lieutenant's belt.

He took advantage of the Lieutenant's momentary distraction to feel his right sleeve. He allowed himself a private grin when, against all odds, his fingers met the sturdy handle of his vibroblade. How it hadn't been displaced after the crash and the subsequent misuse of his uniform as an impromptu pillow he didn't know, but that wasn't important.

"Come help me up, Lieutenant. I want to see if..." He let his voce trail off, gesturing towards the cane the officer had deposited next to him. An excuse like any other to have him come closer with his guards down, which seemed to work just fine.

"Of course," Mitaka jumped to his feet, walking over to him quickly. "A bit of exercise will make you feel better! I'm afraid we'll have to move soon, anyway. The sooner the better, actually. I always say that -- "

Hux tuned out Mitaka's ramblings, concentrating on letting his weapon slip down his arm and right into his waiting hand instead.

"I don't know how much you've heard about my supposed treason," he began, leaning more heavily against the other man's shoulder so that he'd be forced to use both of his arms to keep him up, preventing him from reach for his blaster. "Or the reason why General Pryde decided I was passible of execution."

"Oh, I've heard enough," Mitaka assured him.

Hux's fingers tightened around the handle of blade, muscles tensed and ready to strike. Right under the ribs and upwards, straight through the heart, like his combat trainers had taught him a long time before.

As much as he hated being forced to sacrifice one of his most capable officers, he knew he didn’t have a choice. Mitaka's scheme appeared now as clear as day. There was no reason why a lowly officer would risk life and limb to drag a wounded, disgraced General out of a star destroyer.

Or rather, there was _one_ reason and that was to stage an escape only drag him back to the _Steadfast_ to have him publicly executed, earning himself a medal and a promotion in the process. The great Dopheld Mitaka, decorated for the courage he had demonstrated in subduing a vicious traitor.

Hux fought back a grimace of contempt.

"And though I can't say I understand them, I'm sure you had plenty of reasons to do what you did."

Hux blinked, the sharp blade still inches from the Lieutenant's chest. "I beg you pardon?"

"I don't know if I would have had the courage to do the same," he went on unaffected, still blissfully unaware of how close he had gone to being stabbed through the heart. "The fact that you're ready to risk your reputation to protect the Order speaks volumes about your skills, sir. A good General should be always ready to make risky decisions for the good of his soldiers."

Caught off guard, Hux did the worst thing one can do when preparing to strike a killing blow – he hesitated. The look of admiration in Mitaka’s eyes seemed genuine. Not long before he had been able to witness just how bad of an actor he was, the chances he had somehow realised his mistake and took instant measures to fix it were very slim. You don’t learn to dissimulate your feelings at a few moments’ notice.

That only left one absurd if highly probable possibility: he wasn’t lying.

"I changed my mind, Lieutenant. I think I need some rest."

Mitaka nodded. "Sound decision, sir. We're in no rush, a few hours of sleep could do both of us some good."

There's an old saying in the Galaxy about bad things always coming in threes. And while it wasn't necessarily true for everyone, it was about to be truer than ever for Armitage Hux.

If the first terrible incident he had experienced had been getting shot twice in the span of a few minutes and the second misadventure had coincided with his arrival on a deserted planet without means to return back to civilisation, the third bad thing manifested itself with a disquieting noise echoing in the distance.

Something between a deep growl and the angry roar of a wild beast.

Hux stumbled when Mitaka let go of him to grab his blaster.

"General, I...uhm, I may not have been completely truthful in my report," Mitaka said.

"Not now, Lieutenant," Hux hissed. Vibroblade still in hand, he narrowed his eyes trying to make out the shape of whatever had just produced the terrifying noise.

"I mean it, sir. Back at the abandoned camp I told you about I…I didn’t just find some food. I also found the people who had built it. Problem is, sir, they weren't exactly ali--"

"I said shut up!" Hux shouted.

Or meant to shout, at least, because his voice was drowned by another loud roar. The General and the Lieutenant exchanged a worried look. The sound was heard a third time.

Then a fourth one, getting closer.

And closer.

And closer.


End file.
